7. Transference

This chapter is about what I know as "personalization." Following Hagen's dictum to find yourself in the part, "transference" involves immersing yourself imaginatively in the character's life by asking yourself what you know about their experience.

Hagen warns against trying to find exact parallels. This will stifle the imagination. When finding a transference for a particular event (such as discovering the body of your dead lover), she specifies that it is the essence of the experience you are looking for. For the latter situation, she suggests the death of her poodle as a useful transference.

You make transferences not only for events, but also for relationships and environments. But transference is not an end in itself. It is an incomplete technique until it results in behavior that is specific to the character's experience and story. It should never result in self-indulgent behavior the the part of the actor.

Transference is a rehearsal technique. By performance they should be well in place.

Some parts will require less transference than others. As Harriet Walter says, sometimes acting is as easy as falling off a log. For whatever reason, sometimes the imaginative leaps are remarkably easy and instinctual. Sometimes the character's experiences are so close to one's own that no transference is necessary.

Hagen recommends building a storehouse of transferences, making them an integral part of your homework and rehearsal procedures. This is where an actor's observation and daily imaginative life comes in. Perhaps do the exercise where the students observe a particular person and bring them in to class.

She also refers to "particularization," which I know as "endowment." This refers to more specific interactions with objects and environment--the stinging heat of a stiff shot (that is really cold tea or colored water), the delicacy of china (actually a plastic cup), a cold winter gust (on a sweltering stage). Students could do short etudes involving an entrance, interaction with object, and exit. They would have to particularize where they were coming from, where they were going, and their relationship to the room and object.

Hagen also stresses that it's important not to share your transferences with your director or castmates. They will then lose their imaginative power and cease to function for you. How then to work on transference in the classroom? Bring in some of the Meisner exercises we used to use with Kenny? Using the circumstances in the plays we are studying?

Also the exercise we did with Tom, exploring the themes of the play and then building scenes from our own experiences that involve those themes.

What I want to highlight is how the imagination is applied actively to the play to result in truthful behavior onstage.